


keep the company of wolves

by Snacky



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Prompt Fic, direwolves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-16
Updated: 2017-09-16
Packaged: 2018-12-30 08:01:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,171
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12104280
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Snacky/pseuds/Snacky
Summary: Within the walls of Winterfell, Sansa waits for something to arrive.





	keep the company of wolves

**Author's Note:**

  * For [riahchan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/riahchan/gifts).



> A mix of show and book canon, and a glimpse of Sansa and Winterfell, post season 7.

_“The wolves knew when it was time to stop looking for what they'd lost, to focus instead on what was yet to come.” - Jodi Picoult_

* * *

 

The ravens come daily from Castle Black, from Eastwatch, from The Shadow Tower: more wildlings let through the gates. Since Jon Snow led the first group through, word spread amongst the wildlings who remained north of the Wall: they could go south. The Night’s Watch would let them through.  
  


Sansa looks up from the latest message in her hand and peers over courtyard, over the walls of Winterfell, over the snowy moors and at the dark of the Wolfswood. It’s not snowing, not today, but the skies are full of clouds, heavy and white, and she feels the threat of the winter, of the enemy beyond the Wall, hanging in the air. She almost expects to see the wildlings moving along the Kingsroad, across the snow-covered fields, emerging from the wolfswood, running as fast and as far as they can from the monsters on their heels.   
  


She doesn’t, of course. But she doesn’t fool herself either. They’re most likely making their way to Winterfell, their pace slow but steady. Other groups have already shown up, looking for shelter, looking for work, looking for safety in the face of the coming War.  
  


They don’t speak of it, when they arrive at the gates. But Sansa sees it in their faces; the same look she’s seen in Jon’s face, in Tormund’s, in Edd’s: the look of those who have seen the face of the true enemy, who know what’s coming.  
  


She tells the guards to let them in — they need as many hands as possible to continue to prepare the castle for winter. There are repairs still to be done, supplies to stock, armor and weapons to be forged. The more hands to do the work, the quicker it will be done. And the more bodies to fight, when the time comes. The Winter Town is nearly full, though, and she wonders where she will shelter them all.  
  


Sansa sighs and crumples the parchment in her hand, still gazing off, searching for… she doesn’t know what.   
  


Bran is in the godswood, as always. He still doesn’t speak to her much, but Sansa has come to understand that he is watching… everyone, everywhere, collecting information that he says they all will need. She shudders to think of his visions and the necessary information ( _what more do we need to know_ , she wonders, _the dead are coming from the north, and enemies from the south, and isn’t that enough?)_ , but Bran has been disinclined to share any of it so far.  
  


She’s not watching for Arya, she knows where Arya has gone. She’s taken Ghost and some of the wildling hunters off to the wolfswood, looking for game to help feed the ever-expanding population of the castle and the Winter Town. Winter is here, and game is not as plentiful as it was only months before — still, there are deer and aurochs to be found in the woods, and fish in the streams. Whatever they can find will help them all to survive the coming winter.  
  


Littlefinger would often stand beside her, as she gazed over her home, but he is not here now, and Sansa will need never look for him again. And she is as glad of that as she had been to be free of Ramsay Bolton. Still, she shivers as they cross her mind, and it’s not from the cold. It’s at what she suffered at the hands of both men, here in her own home. It’s at her relief that they’re both gone, and her horror when she thinks of her hand in both their deaths. Still, she can’t — won’t — be sorry for that. She’s a Stark, and the Lady of Winterfell. It’s her duty to keep her home and family safe, and to put an end to their enemies, whichever way necessary.  
  


It’s not Jon she looks for either. She hasn’t heard from Jon in weeks, although there have been ravens from the south, and rumors of dragons sighted on the way to Eastwatch. She knows Jon is headed to King’s Landing, to meet with Cersei Lannister, and more than the thought of the Others, that realization fills her with dread. Cersei, Sansa knows, cannot be trusted, and she is afraid that’s a lesson that Jon will have to learn for himself.  
  


She would like to look for Jon, but she fears she’ll be watching forever.  
  


Sometimes she thinks she’s waiting to see the others — the ones who will never return, Father and Mother, Robb and Rickon, Maester Luwin and Ser Rodrick, Jeyne Poole and Beth Cassell, Hodor and Old Nan… Sansa is glad to have Bran and Arya close, glad to have Jon to wait for, but it’s hard to be in Winterfell even now, even with all last remaining traces of the Boltons gone, without all the people who made it home.  
  


Still, she watches from her vantage point. No one is returning, not the ones who can, nor the ones she’ll never see again. But there’s something in her, telling her to watch, to wait. Something is coming. Something meant for her.

  
~~

 

She can’t say how long she stands there. Flakes of snow drift around her as she waits, as the snow threatens but the storm holds off. She witnesses the arrival of the latest group of wildlings, and when her steward approaches, tells him to feed and find shelter for them. She watches Arya and the hunters return, with plenty of game, and she’s relieved that their winter food stores will continue to grow. She watches as Bran returns from the Godswood, moving slowly across the yards in his wheeled chair, and she thinks she could go to him and ask, _who is coming? Who do I watch for?_  
  


But instead she stays at her post, waiting for the answer to her questions.  
  


It’s almost dark when the wolves come out of the Wolfswood. She sees Ghost first, as it’s not easy to miss a giant direwolf, even a white one against all the snow. But with Ghost is another direwolf, grey and huge, and Sansa draws in a shocked breath.  
  


It’s Nymeria, of course it is, and even though it’s been years since Sansa has seen Arya’s wolf, there’s no question in her mind that’s who accompanies Ghost.  
  


She picks up her skirts and runs, hurrying through the castle corridors, calling to anyone who will listen to find Arya, find her sister, _tell her to meet me at the Hunters’ Gate._   
  


She rushes through the courtyard and then the open gates, where the guards are standing with their eyes wide and their jaws dropped open. As she skids to a stop, she realizes why — it’s not just Ghost and Nymeria in front of her. No, they’re at the head of whole pack of wolves. Sansa doesn’t know how she missed that from her sighting, but she was so focused on Nymeria that she didn’t notice what the direwolves were leading.  
  


And there was something else she hadn’t noticed. The pups. Both Ghost and Nymeria have a pup in their enormous jaws, dangling by the scruff. Two grey direwolf puppies, and Sansa is sure they’re direwolves, not just wolves, that they lay at her feet.  
  


Sansa drops to her knees in the snow, gathering the puppies into her skirts, and reaching out a hand to Nymeria, letting the great direwolf catch her scent. She’s not afraid — she knows the wolf knows her. She couldn’t say how she knows this, but it’s a fact. Lady is gone, but Sansa is still part of the pack.  
  


She lays a hand against Nymeria’s muzzle, a soft, questioning touch, and glances down at the pups on her lap. “Are these yours? Did you bring them to us?”  
  


There’s no answer from Nymeria, but there’s a gasp behind her. Arya has arrived, Sansa knows without even turning to look.  
  


“Nymeria…” Arya’s voice is soft, but not questioning. She knows the direwolf on sight, just as Sansa did. Nymeria turns from Sansa and the pups and goes to Arya, and now Sansa does turn to look, to watch Arya fall to her knees and throw her arms around the giant direwolf, burying her face in the ruff of grey fur. “You came home.”  
  


Ghost takes this moment to butt his head against Sansa’s shoulder, and her attention turns to the pups in her skirt. “Hello,” she murmurs, studying them, tracing her gloved fingers over their fluffy ears, touching their rounded bellies. They’re not starving, and they’re bigger than Nymeria and Ghost and the others were when Robb and Jon and Bran brought them home, all those years ago.  
  


Ghost drops his head to nose at the two pups, who are tumbling together on Sansa’s lap. “Arya,” she call. “Come see.”  
  


Her sister just stares when she sees what Sansa is holding. “Puppies?”  
  


“Nymeria and Ghost brought them. Do you think they’re hers?” Sansa gazes at Nymeria, who is standing next to Arya, pressed against her side as if they’ve never been parted.   
  


“They must be.” Arya’s peering at Nymeria too, trying see if she’s been nursing the pups, but her winter coat is too thick for the evidence to be seen. “There are no other direwolves south of the Wall.”  
  


Sansa looks from Nymeria to Ghost to the pups in her lap, and back at Arya. “Now there are four.”  
  


Her sister nods. “One for you. One for Bran.”  
  


Sansa goes still as she looks down at the pups in her lap. It wasn’t a thought that had ever occurred to her, that she would have another direwolf. That she would ever want another direwolf. She thinks of Lady and her heart aches, and no, she’s not sure if one of these pups should be hers.  
  


But they are sweet, the little balls of fluff curled up in her skirts, the lighter one nipping at other’s tail, while it stares up at Sansa with soft brown eyes. Maybe, she thinks. Maybe they are from me, for Bran. Maybe we need them, maybe they need us.  
  


She thinks of her brother, so withdrawn, so distant, so unlike the sweet, laughing boy she remembers. She remembers Meera Reed telling of Hodor and Summer’s deaths, how Bran changed after that. She thinks of herself, how lonely she still feels in Winterfell, even with Arya and Bran both here.   
  


Winterfell is their home, but they are all so changed. _The wolves have returned to Winterfell,_ she has heard people say, but all three Starks have been without their wolves. And Jon… Jon’s gone and left his behind, and Sansa worries about him, off in the south without Ghost, whom he surely needs.  
  


She’s been waiting for something all day, waiting for something even longer than that, and now the direwolves are here. Maybe she’s being foolish, reverting back to the silly girl she used to be, but Sansa chooses to believe that she was waiting for the wolves. Just as the north waited for the Starks to return and reclaim Winterfell, so she and the others have been waiting for their wolves to claim them.   
  


She scoops the dark-eyed pup up in her arms and gestures to Arya to take the other. “Come,” she says as she climbs to her feet. “We must find Bran. We must tell him the wolves have returned.”   
  


Nymeria growls at the other wolves, and they head off, back to the Wolfswood, but the direwolves trail Sansa and Arya as they walk through the gate, back to the keep, with the pups warm and snug in their arms.  
  


The appearance of the direwolves — it might mean something. Bran would know. And it might not mean anything at all.   
  


But — once Sansa was called “Little Bird” and maybe that’s what she was in King’s Landing — a little bird in a gilded cage of the Lannisters’ making. Later she was Baelish’s pet, a trained bird who listened to his words and learned to parrot them back to him, giving him exactly what he wanted to hear. Even back in the North, even in Winterfell, she was trapped, caged by the Boltons, owned by Ramsay, a bird with her wings clipped.  
  


But — Sansa is not a bird. She’s a Stark of Winterfell — a wolf — just like her brothers and her sister. It’s taken her some time to remember it, some time for that fierceness to come back to her, but she is in her home and even though there are dangers encroaching, Sansa is not afraid. Not anymore. I am fierce, I am a wolf, she thinks. Just like them.   
  


She walks through the doors of the Great Keep with the pup in her arms, Arya beside her, Ghost and Nymeria at their heels, and Sansa feels stronger, more sure of herself. She is a Stark. She is a wolf. And she finally feels like she is home.  
  



End file.
